Yo! Check This Out! IKEA Rules!

Aside from the Swedish meatballs they serve in the cafeteria—a dish I dearly love—I'm not much looking forward to the coming debut of the Red Hook IKEA. And their bus shelter ads aren't helping my mood.

These assaults of amateur whismy may have been up for weeks, but this is the first I've noticed them. They're composed of unfolded IKEA cardboard boxes against a background of yellow. Written on the boxes are various colloquial, would-be-hip narratives. I guess the idea must have been a kind of ironical deconstruction of an IKEA ad that would certainly wow Brooklyn hipsters. Instead, they only confirm that advertising firms tend to employ the sort of wit that wouldn't earn a place on the staff of a college satirical magazine.

One ad on Columbia Street invites us to be awe-struck by the "corrugated awesomeness" of the box. It actually begins with exclamation "Yo! Check this out." And it ends with "Boxes rule!" ("That's how kids talk today. right?" asks the middle-aged Swedish furniture executive.)

Another ad, down by Fairway, wonders if the box on display was acquired by "one of those Mole People who live in the subway." (Hey! They've heard of the subway! Why, those Swedes really understand us New Yorkers after all.) "Troglodytes need furniture, too," it continues." Oy. Not that giant corporations can ever be cool, but how un-cool can you get?